"When I saw the rise of Zynga and tried out some of their games on Facebook, I noticed some of the same design patterns that we use in slot machines." Kotaku reader SpiffyPirate works with slot machines and talks about the similarities he sees between design ideas in that industry and in Zynga's games
“Right now, I’m pretty bored with all games.” That’s Mark Pincus, founder of Farmville company Zynga, as he spoke with an assemblage of tech entrepreneurs in Israel last night. Bored? More like not paying attention. It’s an incredibly exciting time in game development now, Mr. Pincus. All you need to do to see that is …
There were tons of personnel changes at Zynga, announced today by ex-Xbox boss and new Zynga boss Don Mattrick. The CTO, COO and Chief People Officer are out. Read through the changes and your head may spin. Big changes continue at the house of FarmVille.
Zynga, the social gaming company that owns the trademark to the title "Words With Friends", is suing Bang With Friends Inc., a company founded to help Facebook users find "casual sex".
January of this year marked the first time in ages a non-Zynga game made it to the top of the Facebook app charts, as FarmVille 2 was passed
Don Mattrick has, reportedly, 50 million reasons to smile this week, ditching Microsoft and all things Xbox for Zynga and the leadership of all things 'Ville
In select circumstances, until earlier today, the Zynga game Coasterville told users to email a certain address @themepark.com if something went wrong. The problem is, that email address didn't belong to a Zynga employee.
Sure, some people
Everybody's favorite combustible video game commentator usually doesn't comment on companies' personnel moves. But, clearly Don Mattrick's move to Zynga has inflamed Francis more than, say, the departure of former EA CEO John Riccitiello. The result? Lines like this: "It's like hiring the pilot from the Hindenburg to…
After an earlier report
Don Mattrick, who's been the public face for all things Xbox for the last few years, will be leaving Microsoft to take a top leadership role at Zynga, reports All Things D.
Japanese developer iNiS — the name's an acronym for "infinite Noise of the inner Soul" — has spent the past decade and a half perfecting the art of the rhythm game. From classics like Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents to not-so-classics like last year's DLC-packed Demon's Score, iNiShave mastered the melding of sound and …
After listening to this week's episode of This American Life on software patents, I was curious to investigate patents within the gaming sphere. Although we routinely hear
Scott Jon Siegel knows Zynga from the inside out. The game designer was at the casual game company as they grew to becoming a buzzed-about company, working on titles like Café World and Scramble. He left a while back and is now at PopCap Games. Like lots of other game creators, he looked on with concern as Zynga shed…
The east coast presence of Zynga, that once
A year ago, sketch-centric guessing game Draw Something became an inescapable phenomenon, pulling in millions of people each day. That success led to a surprising $210 million acquisition of dev studio OMGPOP
The company behind FarmVille just got a little smaller. Zynga, the troubled developer responsible for a number of social games, laid off 520 staff today—18% of the company's employees. The goal: refocus on mobile gaming.
The mobile collectible card genre has exploded over the past year, with players shelling out big bucks for virtual cards with statistics assigned to them. Players for teams of heroes, demons, pirates or robots and take them into battle, which is generally nothing more than a quick stats comparison. What if a game in…
With its growing focus on mobile gaming and its penchant for trying to out-popular already popular games, Zynga was going to get around to stepping on Temple Run's toes eventually, and what better way than to combine the joy of endless running with the trusted ...With Friends brand? The result is a combination I'm…
As part of Zynga's new "austerity," the company is fixating on its Farmville franchise. "It could be the Seinfeld of our era in gaming, a multi-season show that has a quality and a consistency that you can rely on," said Mark Pincus. That, or show about nothing that ended horribly.
Zynga, cruising on the highway to BrokeVille, is banking on its newest ripoff of Pictionary to be as wildly popular as the first one. Banking so heavily, in fact, that the company is just shamelessly getting famous people to feign interest on Twitter. Ryan Seacrest: diehard iPhone artist.
Continuing the streamlining of its web-based social game business, Zynga has announced that it will be closing Empires & Allies, Dream Zoo and Zynga City, the Chinese version of CityVille on Tencent. That's in addition to The Ville, confirmed for closure earlier this week.
Earnings numbers are in for Facebook playground Zynga, and holy cow, they're profitable even post-IPO disaster. But under the surface, they're dying. Quickly. People are fleeing FarmVille by the millions.
I've been quite vocal in the past about my disdain for the current generation of 'collectible card games' blossoming in the wake of Rage of Bahmut's success. Games like Aeria Mobile's Pirate Maidens
Next week folks will be able to sign up for Zynga.com without Facebook, as the company explores its independence
While time may soon run out on the First Date event in ChefVille, Zynga just couldn't help itself. The ChefVille team has released another new quest series that needs to be completed within the event's remaining three days. While the quests are voluntary, you can earn some additional rewards by completing them, so…
